You know life would be so much simpler if it were the other way around...

Ah well.

In other news we have several 'money makers' at the various drug stores. But I have to find the right coupons, and we have to actually make it to the stores.

The kids also need to go to Barnes and Nobel for free books, earned in summer reading. They earned them over a week ago, but we haven't made it to the store yet.

The wraps say different things, like 6-8, or 8-10. But oddly enough the ones that say they are only up to 8lb, are the bigger ones!

Ah well you never know what a difference but shape makes.

So now we have diapers, but of course, the hard part is keeping enough of them clean to keep her butt covered!

So far....well so long as she stays asleep till the dryer stops we will be fine - but if she wakes up early....

On a side note, she woke up from nap and hadn't peed yet, so I told her now would be a good time and she did! Then later when I was changing her I mentioned we could get the next pee out of the way if she would pee. I swear she thought about it and peed!

Not that I expect to have her potty trained any time soon, but I have high hopes she is like her big sister and we can look forward to an easier road.

I mentioned the cloth diapers are too big. Well we had some free newborns, and some free size ones. But we are now all out.

Yesterday there was a good CVS deal, large jumbo pack for 20 earns 10 ECBs. Plus we had a $3 coupon. and leftover ECBs with no where to spend them.

Turns out the only size diapers in jumbo packs are 3s or larger!

We went ahead and bought them since we are sure she will grow, but kinda bummed about her need of diapers.

I could just go pay full price, but I don't wanna.

In other deal news, bought a ton of junk food for camp (chips and smores making stuff) plus beef and chx for dinner, some fruit (raspberries!) and other misc food stuff all for $60, coupons totaled over $60 in savings .

Saw the midwife today, she said it sounds like a very short case of mastitis.

Have a mild headache today, going to try some peppermint tea and a nap.

Got a phone call yesterday from some babbled company 'you won some sweepstakes, because of your garble garble, and also your visa, MasterCard'..and proceeded to list half a dozen other CCs.

then he asked if I carry one in my wallet now.

I said nope....

"oh well it must be because of your debt card, does it say visa, MasterCard, or" something else I can't recall " on it?"

I said, dunno, I don't have one of those cards.

he apologized and hung up.

Somehow I just don't think I was a real winner.

Not sure what sort of waiting timeline there will be. But the interview went well.

Husband has all the skills they are looking for (and then some) Not entirely certain if the job is temp or regular though.

Anyway, it is the most promising lead we have had so far.

Encountered a problem with the cloth diapers...they are too big! Very adjustable for size, but apparently not quite so small as this tiny baby!
which means we right now have no diapers, and nothing that wont leak. I am a fan of early PTing, but this is pushing it!

A friend offered me a loan of some of her newborn cloth diapers, so come Sunday we will have an alternative. Plus there are some other diapers donated to the church that the nursery doesn't use, we just have to go pick them up.

Husband was going to pick them up yesterday, but I got sick, horrible fever and all the body aches going with it. Today I am left with just a splitting headache.

Hopefully that will go away soon.

Sunday night we had her at 11:59, she just squeaked into a Sunday birth.

She is tiny, and doing great, the rest of the kids are doing quite well with her arrival. A bit of extra whining on the younger three's part, but the oldest is being a big helper, and kinda responsible sometimes. The rest of hte time he is your typical 8 year old .

Things are starting to settle into a routine of sorts.

I posted a bit about the homebirth on my non finance blog if you are interested.

Financially he has a phone interview Monday, which if it does progress to a job would be pretty nifty.

Last night we caught ourseles 'counting our chickens' well before they even arrived to hatch Allocating the income and such.

Nothing extravagant, we aim to keep our bills pretty constantly low enough that UI would cover them. Though we would for the sake of time prolly pick back up the habit of having someone else do the grocery shopping, and maybe even run kids to the library. The rest would be savings really. OK a bit more eating out...but nothing that would be a reoccurring bill.

Todays list for HT:
fruit, veggies, yogurt, meat
and one kind of mustard that will be free or really cheap after coupon.

FL:
fruit (different kind)
veggies (different kind)
Meat


Various drug stores:
deodorant -free after rebates/coupons
chocolate - good price
mouthwash/toothpaste - free after rebates/coupon
Hair stuff - free after rebates/coupon


So are coupons worth the paper? Well once every 3-5 weeks there is a fancy 'super doubles' or Triples coupon week. And on those weeks generally we get a decent amount of food free.

Between the drug store and the triple/super double yeah I think it is worth the $2 a week for the paper, but....not going to make or break the bank....

We generally spend more on food than anything else for a birthday party. Yesterday was no exception.

Homemade cake -not really sure cost of ingredients, but being whole wheat, prolly same as buying a cake, certainly more than the 1 or less box mix.

Fish sticks (it was a penguin party, penguins eat fish), and Hotdogs (most picky kids don't eat fish) Fish was reg price, hotdogs free gift, leftovers from a picnic.)
Cheese reg price (2.50lb)
Fruit grapes OS watermelon not
Crackers reg price
Juice 2 or 3 a bottle.

For games we bought one multi pack of sea creatures. $5 and two boxes of ziplocks.

plus the cost of plenty of ice.

We played:
'Cold ice' (hot potato)
Rescue the fish (froze cups of water with sea creature in middle, kids had to melt creature out..no slamming into ground -or slamming things into ice)
Plus some hockey trials (penguin as in Pgh Penns)

I had musical ice floes planned, but we used up all the white paper for making snowflakes and penguins..plus I would have had to round up all the kids and that was too much work.

So far as I can tell the kids had fun, ate well, and enjoyed themselves. I could prolly have a party for less $ if I stopped feeding people, but since by the time dinner came around I was out of energy to even serve, I find food an essential part of the party. (pregnant or not my family eats every couple hours)

Just saw a FB update from someone saying it was going to be hot today because the air is out.

We haven't had ours on. Not only do we have no intentions of turning it on (money for electric bills doesn't grow on trees folks) we really do not miss it for most of the day.

My husband might, but he sleeps in past the best parts of the day .

I would prefer the pool to be open so we had someplace nice to cool off in the late afternoons, would make for a nice sleep after. But beggars can't be choosers.

However, for the birthday party tomorrow I might have pity on my guests, and when I go into labor if I want the air on, I will get it. But after the party and after delivery, we will be turning it back off.

So my husband brought up a point yesterday, why don't we call the mortgage folk and tell them we are soon going to be unable to make payments (unemployment wont last forever and if there is one thing Charlotte is full of it is out of work IT guys).

We have not payed late, nor missed any in almost the entire loan (the one time we were 'late' they cashed my check for less than it was written out for, so their fault and was fixed eventually) So in 8 years we have given them no troubles.

I am wondering if that will help or hurt our chances of refinancing or something. I figure the worst that can happen is a wasted phone call. The best is a new loan, at a lower rate, but I do not want a loan to reset. I get depressed enough looking at the life of the loan as it is.

Well the worst that can happen is a wasted phone call and a cranky husband.....

While hunting the best deals this week for grocery shopping I came across a frozen pizza that was $13 on sale....really? it costs $13 for a frozen pizza? I recall those things as rather unpleasant substitutes for dinner, that cost a couple bucks. I dunno maybe they taste better these days, but if I have to heat up my house in this weather, I would expect some top notch food, and a really good deal.

Considering how much my family eats, I would prolly be better off going to the restaurant to order out!

In other news, the drug store shopping has turned up some cheap first aid kid supplies, needed for GS project. Free razor, that the 'regular' checkout lady asked my husband 'did you get the free razor last week?' and when he said 'yes' she asked 'why didn't you use it'...... I happen to p0refer him clean shaven, but being 9 months pregnant I really don't care much one way or the other.

Speaking of pregnant, yes I still am.

Scouts have both done their crossovers, Co-op has done it's end of year thank you and play, and the only thing major left to do before a baby is a birthday party for EL and husband.

OF course after there is VBS and backyard campout with scouts.

Money wise, eh, it comes in, it goes out, a smidgen out of the EF each month for things like teeth, and hopefully regular income will return soonish.

One job place husband finally got ahold of via email, apparently they had the wrong number, and one job applied for yesterday is actually worth having, close by and description fits exactly what husband used to do. Pay decent and all. We shall see.